PARIS (Reuters) – The Atos board of directors said on Tuesday that it was speaking out against “the attempts to destabilize” Cyril Charlot, founding partner of Sycomore AM, who is calling for the departure of the group’s current chairman, and of Léo Apotheker, his candidate of choice to replace him, after the publication the day before of an interview granted to Figaro.
Sycomore Asset Management, a minority shareholder in the IT services specialist, has been calling for the resignation of Bertrand Meunier, chairman of the group, for several months.
“The results have been catastrophic from every point of view since Bertrand Meunier took over the presidency of Atos in 2019”, declared Figaro Cyril Charlot, who is proposing the appointment as administrator of Léo Apotheker, former boss of SAP and Hewlett Packard.
“I find it absurd that the Atos board does not have at least a third of its members who really understand the businesses and the technologies”, declared Léo Apotheker to the daily newspaper, considering however that the group’s strategic plan ” seems to be going in the right direction.”
The board of directors of Atos said in a press release “surprised” by this comment, which validates and at the same time criticizes the group’s strategy.
“These attacks are intended solely to destabilize a group mobilized to implement its recovery and its strategy of creating value for all of its stakeholders, while Messrs. Léo Apotheker and Cyril Charlot are unaware of the effective functioning of the governance of Atos,” retorted the board of directors.
Sycomore Asset Management, minority shareholder of Atos, believes in a letter dated June 1 addressed to Atos and communicated to the press, that Bertrand Meunier has “a significant share of responsibility in the governance crisis” with which the group has faced .
The Atos Board of Directors has voted unanimously against a proposal to dismiss Bertrand Meunier’s term of office as director, supported by minority shareholders, and which will be submitted to the vote of shareholders at the general meeting of the group on June 28.
After a troubled period marked by a governance crisis and heavy losses, Atos has launched a project to spin off its digital and cybersecurity activities into a new entity renamed Eviden. Its historical activities, in particular outsourcing, will be housed within Tech Foundations, which has attracted the interest of Czech businessman Daniel Kretinsky.
(Written by Kate Entringer, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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